While previous work has recognised the potential for open badges and blockchain to play a role in online courses, this potential has yet to be realised in a fully decentralized cMOOC. This paper describes the design objectives of an application that integrates open badges and blockchain with a cMOOC. The work described was undertaken during the…

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are online courses that are open to anyone with Internet access. Pioneered in North America, they were developed for contexts with broader access to technology and wider access to the Internet. As globally networked learning environments (GNLEs), MOOCs foster collaborative communities and learning in ways not…

Following campus closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Ministries of Education around the world requested teachers to move their teaching online. This case study reflects on how the Commonwealth of Learning responded to requests from two countries to provide support in pedagogical and curricular change for online learning in this process. A…

This mixed-methods study examines the design and delivery of MOOCs to facilitate student self-monitoring for self-directed learning (SDL). The data collection methods included an online survey (n = 198), semi-structured interviews of MOOC instructors (n = 22), and document analysis of MOOCs (n = 22). This study found that MOOC instructors viewed…

This paper critiques the rise and impact of the open education movement, focusing in particular on Higher Education. It considers the impact of adopting more open practices on learning, teaching and research. In terms of the impact on learning it describes three aspects: Open Educational Resources, e-textbooks and Massive Open Online Courses. In…

This paper is an attempt to describe the situation of higher education in Asia including the challenges it faced as well as the open and distance elearning initiatives by different countries and universities. Data gathering was done through review of online documents and websites as well as documentation of the different initiatives especially by…

MOOCs are re-operationalising traditional concepts in education. While they draw on elements of existing educational and learning models, they represent a new approach to instruction and learning. The challenges MOOCs present to traditional education models have important implications for approaching and assessing quality. This paper foregrounds…

Since 2012 MOOCs have been heralded as a new way of learning outside of formal university programs of study and there has been much speculation regarding their impact. While MOOCs have provided millions of global learners with access to courses, they failed to deliver the types of learning experiences and completion requirements that were hoped…

The advent of the internet and digital technologies has given rise to a number of new economic models. These have often been applied to education, but either through faults in the initial models or differences in the characteristics of the education sector, they have not proven to be widely applicable. The use of digital, network technologies…

There is an urgent need to improve elementary and secondary school classroom practices across India and the scale of this challenge is argued to demand new approaches to teacher professional learning. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) represent one such approach and one that, in the context of this study, is considered to provide a means by…